Education in Hydrogen Technologies Area

<< Background >>In the vocational education in our secondary school we are monitoring the actual trends in the field of innovations on the labour market. In intensive cooperation with companies for which we are providers of future workers and in accordance with European and national strategic documents concerning hydrogen technologies, we wanted to respond to the needs of the labour market and start preparing specialists for this field. After analysing the situation of education in the field of hydrogen technologies at national and European level, we wanted together with other partners to respond to the need for availability of educational materials for secondary vocational schools and to start to participate in the preparation of curricula. In the context of global strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, the use of hydrogen technologies is one of the ways to achieve these goals. Technological progress in this area is very fast. We wanted to actively respond to this and start preparing our students for the potential new job market that will be part of a green energy concept.<< Objectives >>The implementation of the project was aimed at the development of uniform educational materials and curricula for hydrogen technologies at the level of secondary education, which would be transferable across European countries. The European Union has defined high requirements for the hydrogen workers in its strategic documents for the next years. The Member States are responding to this progressively. The differences in development between the Member States are large, but at the same time there is a presumption of uniform qualification requirements for workers in this sector.It was necessary to react in the field of education to create support for education in this area. This also involved the training of teachers, who will be able to pass on the knowledge and skills they have acquired. While developing the educational materials, we wanted to get an overview of the national situation and find a consensus across the partner countries for the topics covering the most important areas of hydrogen technology use and should be included in the developed materials.<< Implementation >>According to the objectives of the project, we carried out several types of activities, which followed each other during the implementation.1.Preparing educational materials - we prepared educational materials including curricula, PDF texts (to support teachers), e-learning (to teach students) and an open course (usable by the public). During the development of the e-learning we also involved the students who took part in the pilot testing and then the best ones from each organisation were selected to participate in a Learning, training, teaching activity in Germany together with the teachers.2. Learning, training, teaching activity for teachers - 3 training activities were arranged (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany) for the teachers involved in the project and involved in the development of the educational material. These activities were carried out in the different partner countries in order to provide teachers with knowledge and skills on the application and implementation of hydrogen technologies in other member countries. The activities in Germany were also attended by students from all the partner countries who had successfully taken part in the pilot testing in the e-learning tool.3.Four transnational meetings of project coordinators were held. These meetings were mainly focused on organisational issues of the project. However, all of them were complemented by expert lectures or excursions to companies in the field of hydrogen technologies in the regions.Most of the coordinators are also involved in vocational education in their schools, so we wanted to take the opportunity to gain more new knowledge in the field of hydrogen technologies in other member countries where we did not have direct Learning, training, teaching activities.4.In the second half of the project, when the educational materials were already in an almost final form, we started to organise multiplier events in the partner countries - events to disseminate the results of the project. The aim was to present the prepared materials to representatives of secondary schools, companies, government and the public and to get feedback.5.At the end of the project, a final conference took place in the Czech Republic to present the final version of the prepared materials. The conference brought together representatives of secondary and higher schools, enterprises, ministries of industry and trade, education and pedagogy institutions. It also aimed at networking and raising awareness of importance of introducing and supporting hydrogen technology education in secondary schools.6.We also organised several unplanned excursions for teachers and students. During the project we made contacts with significant companies and it was appropriate to use these opportunities to support education and further education in secondary schools.<< Results >>The concrete outputs of the project are the educational materials developed by 6 EU Member States. The themes of these materials cover the field of hydrogen technologies relevant for education in secondary schools within the EU: Hydrogen Filling StationsHydrogen vehicles with fuel cellsHydrogen vehicles with combustion enginesHydrogen storage and transportHydrogen production and safetyIt includes curricula, educational materials, e-learning and open course. The educational materials have been prepared according to an analysis of the educational requirements in the participating Member States and in cooperation with employers and their requirements for the qualifications of the experts in the field of hydrogen technologies area.